The state of the art in three-dimensional modeling can represent a variety of complex smooth surfaces. When artists and designers create shapes with these techniques, it is often observed that often the method of surface representation restricts the ways in which a shape can be modeled.
Traditional spline-based modeling can be used to represent many different shapes, for example. A user often needs to think of the most efficient way to represent a shape before beginning the modeling process. However, changing directions once in the design process often requires a drastic change in the underlying placement of patches and may require extra work. The traditional shape modeling approach of the graphics and CAD communities is fundamentally different from the approach taken by the artistic community.